2015-06-07

If companies refurbish or change services, it can impact a value of your intelligent TV.(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Q. The TV Guide app on my intelligent TV stopped operative for no apparent reason. Is there any approach to get it back?

A. This doubt competence demeanour like a bit of a re-run; unfortunately, it’s not.

The final time we dealt with a disintegrating onscreen module guide, this use from Rovi Corp. came around over-the-air broadcasts, and it went divided starting in 2012 when that Santa Clara, Calif., company’s carriage agreements with CBS and a PBS auxiliary expired.

At that time, we suggested owners of connected, “smart” TVs to check a settings on their sets for an choice to get Rovi’s TV Guide around a Internet. But now even that fallback use is going divided on some sets, withdrawal viewers of over-the-air TV broadcasts though any built-in module guide.

A reader of my Jul 2013 Rovi mainstay forked me to a tech-support thread on Sony’s site that kicked off final month with a censure that Rovi’s Internet-delivered TV beam had stopped operative Apr 24.

This owners total that Sony’s possess tech support suggested that he post that note, since they themselves were “unable to find a solution.” Other TV owners fast reliable saying this emanate on pre-2014 models.

I checked on a 2009-vintage Sony connected TV myself (which, to give Sony a tiny credit, got program updates through a open of 2013) and found that this LCD’s TV-guide app now displayed a vacant report grid. When we attempted to refurbish it, a app reported secretly that “The internet tie is not available” even as other Internet-linked programs worked as usual.

When asked for comment, a Sony spokeswoman, Maya Wasserman, wrote that “my bargain is Rovi dropped a TV Guide feature.”

Sony is apparently utterly confused about all this, since Rovi says it continues to run this beam use for manufacturers who replenish their placement deals.

“A few years ago some TV manufacturers motionless to stop regulating a Rovi TV listings beam use and phased out that member for their successive TV models,” Rovi publicist Katrina Estrella pronounced in an e-mail. “Rovi continues to support a TV listings beam on internet-connected TVs whose manufacturers select to continue distribution.”

Did other TV makers dump Rovi’s service? “We can’t share names of any other vendors,” Estrella said. “Rovi leaves it adult to manufacturers to hold that information.”

That’s kind of a problem if a manufacturer can’t get a story straight, don’t we think?

If your set is among those afflicted, you’re fundamentally out of luck. You can’t compensate Rovi directly for a beam service, and these comparison sets don’t concede we to supplement third-party program of your choice that competence collect adult Rovi’s report feed. So you’ll have to demeanour adult what’s entrance adult over a airwaves regulating a nearest phone, inscription or laptop.

Tip: Google refurbish yanks YouTube from some intelligent TVs

Rovi’s program isn’t a usually Internet-connected underline to stop operative on comparison sets. In April, Google sensitively began slicing off a YouTube apps on some comparison devices, a pierce that a tech-support note pronounced was compulsory by updates to YouTube’s format.

(Those changes were foresee in a Mar 2014 post on a YouTube Engineering blog; a initial criticism implored Google to safety support for intelligent TVs.)

Google’s list of influenced inclination embody pre-2013 TVs and Blu-ray players from Sony and Panasonic; iOS inclination still regulating iOS 5 or progressing versions of Apple’s mobile handling system; first- and second-generation Apple TVs; comparison DirecTV and other set-top boxes; and Sony’s Playstation Vita.

These dual developments underline one downside of a pierce to make living-room gadgets “smart” and “connected.” Even as they stay in use for as prolonged as their dumb, offline predecessors–NPD DisplaySearch reported final Jun that the normal age of a U.S. TV has crept adult to a tiny over 5 years–the program inside can be harder to ascent than what’s on a laptop or desktop though usually as probable to be rendered archaic by changes elsewhere.

Rob Pegoraro is a tech author formed out of Washington, D.C. To contention a tech question, e-mail Rob during rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter during twitter.com/robpegoraro.

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